Baked Cotton Cheese cake

It was my son's birthday a few days ago and I bake this for him. It is not my first time baking this cake but I normally bake this cake without a crust and also icing. I just bake it plain... meaning only the cake itself in a lined cake tin.

It was my first time baking it with a base and cream cheese "icing"... and so, it ended up a tad too sweet as I took the base from another cheese cake recipe and modified the the cream cheese "icing" from a cupcake recipe...

I like this recipe for baked cheese cake as the texture of the cake is really cottony and since it use a whole block of cream cheese, it is really very cheesy too! And if you bake the cake itself only, it is actually not too sweet.

And it is not too complicated to make even for first time bakers. So, all in all, I was quite satisfied with it. The only thing that I need to improve on is the technique that I apply the icing. Honestly speaking, this is the first time that I have tried to apply any kind of icing to cakes. I usually go without but was just adventuorous.



You can see from the close up pictures that the icing is not spread very evenly. And also it is not very smooth. I will need to improve on that in the future.

I have also decorated it with lots of Ultraman because that is what my son loves at this stage. He is only 4 years old. And I was actually going to decorate with peach slices but I ran out of it while making a non-baked cheese cake (Yes, I made 2 cheese cakes that day, one baked and one non-baked - and will post the recipe for the non-baked cheese cake in another post). Anyway, since I ran out of peaches, I had to improvise unless I want to run out to the store to get another can of peaches. I rummage through my refrigerator and found some cherry tomatoes.



And after decorating it with the cherry tomatoes and Ultramans, it looks good, except for the uneven application of icing. But the most important thing is, I guess, my son loves it when he saw it!



And now without further ado, here is the recipe:

Baked Cotton Cheese Cake



Ingredients:

Crust:
125gm butter
250gm cracker crumbs **
50gm cereal **
80gm sugar

** Note: I did not use the crackers and cereal but I used instead about 250gm of Marie biscuits, crushed. And since Marie biscuit is sweeter than cracker crumbs + cereal, I reduced the sugar to 60gm instead of the original 80gm.

Icing (which is actually cream cheese frosting):
150gm cream cheese, room temperature
20gm butter, room temperature
A pinch of salt
20gm sugar

Cheese Cake:
250ml fresh milk
250gm cream cheese
90gm butter
1 teaspoon lemon zest
20gm top flour
20gm corn flour
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
6 egg yolks
6 egg whites
140gm sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence ***

*** Note: As I did not like the smell of vanilla, I omitted this.



Method:

Crust:

1. Melt butter and mix with sugar and cracker crumbs/cereal. (In my case it would be crushed Marie biscuits instead cracker crumbs/cereal).
2. Press(so that it is very compact) this to the bottom of the cake tin and freeze in the freezer for about 3 hours.

Cake:

1. Pre-heat the oven at 190 degree Celcius (Top heat) and place a tray of water** in it.
   **Note: This cake requires the baine marie cooking method (steam and bake at the same time)
2. Sift the flour and corn flour and set aside.
3. Cut the cream cheese into smaller pieces and put the fresh milk and cream cheese in a double boiler. Sitr the mixture all the time over fire till smooth before adding the butter and lemon zest. Keep it warm.
4. Whip the egg white, cream of tartar and sugar till fulffy but not too firm. Add the sifted flour(and corn flour mix) briefly at low speed.
5. Pour in the cream cheese mixture (from step 3) with the whisk running all the time.
   Finally add in the yolks and whisk for a few seconds.
6. Pour in the mixture into the cake tin that has the crust base (or lined cake tin if you are baking without the crust base) and bake in the baine marie for 10-15 minutes till lightly brown at top heat. Then lower the temperature to 150 degree Celcius top and bottom heat for 1 hour till the cake is cooked.
   
   

Cream Cheese Frosting (Icing):

1. Beat together the cream cheese, butter and salt until light and airy.
2. Add the sugar, a little at a time and beat until thoroughly incorporated.
3. Use immediately, or cover and refrigerate until needed.